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Global news bulletin 25/04/2012

-The African Union has called on Sudan to stop its aerial bombardment of South Sudan and for both countries to cease hostilities, as an uneasy calm settled over the disputed border region. Despite a lull in violence on Wednesday, the continental bloc said Sudan and South Sudan must withdraw their forces from Heglig and keep their troops within their borders.

–Pakistan said toady that it had conducted a test launch of a medium-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, just days after its arch-rival India tested a longer-range missile.

-Despite the need to woo voters, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he won’t make a deal with the far-right.

-Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has criticised a psychiatric report declaring him insane as being based on “evil fabrications” meant to portray him as irrational and unintelligent.

–Britain‘s economy declined for the second straight quarter, the U.K. government said today, in a sign that the nation has entered a recession for the second time in four years.

–Hungary appears to have moved a step closer to ending its long-running dispute with the EU. In Brussels, to meet European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban insisted the bust up was nearly over.

–Newt Gingrich is expected to withdraw next week from the US Republican presidential contest, two advisers to the former speaker of the House of Representatives have said. The decision by Gingrich emerged today, a day after Mitt Romney added to his commanding lead in the Republican nomination race with primary wins in five states.

–Rupert Murdoch has rejected accusations that he used his media empire to play puppet master to a succession of British prime ministers, electrifying a media inquiry that has shaken the government and unnerved much of the establishment.

-A young woman has had her child “marriage” legally annulled in northern Rajasthan state, in what is thought to be the first case of its kind in India. Laxmi Sargara, 18, wed Rakesh when she was just one and he was three.